


Enough

by juno60



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Introspection, POV - Julia Ortega, POV Second Person, dubiously riding the line between angst and fluff, get u a woman who still remembers ur favorite candy 7 years after ur death, like. just mostly introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 17:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20492921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juno60/pseuds/juno60
Summary: You didn’t know how to spot it before, not until recently. It’s such an imperceptible change that sometimes you wonder if you’re imagining it, if you’re paying too close attention. You wouldn’t put it past yourself, not when it comes to her. But you can’t shake the feeling that something lurks beneath the surface, ready to pull you under the second you get too close.Is it bad that you want to get close anyway? Maybe. But logic flew out the window when a woman seven years dead showed up eating chocolate cake at a local diner.





	Enough

She’s on your couch. 

She’s on your couch, and for a moment she looks so much like she did seven years ago, you can almost convince yourself it was all a bad dream. Black turtleneck, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, feet pulled up under her. 

She looks so small. Deceptively fragile.

She bleached her hair again recently, maybe that’s what does it. Gone is the mousy brown that almost kept you from recognizing her in that diner, replaced by the same shade of blond that meant home to you before she died. And she just looks… innocent. Soft.

You want to hold her. So much it feels like a physical ache in your chest.

And then she looks up, spots you in the doorway. A second is all you get; a second of familiar hazel eyes, almost soft in this light, almost safe. A brief moment where she’s just Hania, your Hania, your something. A second to sample a feeling you thought you buried.

A second, and then she shifts. Almost invisible, such a tiny thing, a quiet change in the way she holds herself. A slight redistribution of weight. Shoulders tighter, spine straighter, and--there it is, something small and cold and dangerous in her eyes. A predator, ready to pounce, to kill--and you invited her in, you took her coat, you sat her on your couch.

You didn’t know how to spot it before, not until recently. It’s such an imperceptible change that sometimes you wonder if you’re imagining it, if you’re paying too close attention. You wouldn’t put it past yourself, not when it comes to her. But you can’t shake the feeling that something lurks beneath the surface, ready to pull you under the second you get too close.

Is it bad that you want to get close anyway? Maybe. But logic flew out the window when a woman seven years dead showed up eating chocolate cake at a local diner.

What kills you is the not knowing. Not knowing whether that look was always there, if you somehow missed it in all the time you knew her. You’ve always known she’s got a mean streak and a temper she’s prone to losing--it’s a part of her charm, in the strange way it can only be when you’re completely whipped for someone. But you never spotted this side of her before. The predator.

Did she look at you like this the first time you kissed her? Like prey? Like she caught you?

“You gonna hand me that?” she asks, and you’re so far away it takes you a moment to remember what she’s talking about. You look down; there’s a lollipop in your hand.

“Right,” you say, an attempt at a half-smile on your lips as you shuffle your way over to the couch. Her fingers are cold where they touch yours as she takes the candy--poor circulation, she told you once--and there’s still that glint in her eyes.

It follows you as you take a seat next to her, a chilling little thing that settles in the pit of your stomach.

“Thank you,” she says, mirthful, because she doesn’t thank anyone. Even though it’s a joke, you can’t help feeling honored that it’s you she’s decided to direct it at.

She looks at you. She looks at you, and looks at you, and looks at you and looks at you and looks at you, and you know it’s only a second or two, but it feels like an eternity. You feel more than a little frozen. A deer in headlights waiting for catastrophe to strike.

It never does; there’s a self-satisfied little smile on her lips as she looks down at the lollipop you handed her, bitten-short nails tearing open the wrapper as she reads it.

“Hey,” she chuckles, “these are the ones you had at the old Rangers HQ. They were like crack to me.”

“I know,” you say, because you’re not thinking, “that’s why I bought them.”

And then there’s another shift. Not the tiny one from a moment ago, not one you have to concentrate to see. It hits like a quake and crumbles everything in its path; her shoulders slump and her spine curves and God, there she is, that softness in her eyes that makes her look twenty-three again.

She looks up, and there’s an almost glassy finish to the way her gaze settles on you. It feels like taking a warm bath.

“What?” she asks, like she’s not sure she heard you right.

“Yeah,” you say, softer than you meant to. “You were always stuffing your pockets full of them, I figured you must like them. So I went and got some when… When you came back.”

You watch in something not unlike awe as, for the first time in the almost-decade you’ve known her, Hania Wyrzyk blushes. There’s a thrill to it, watching her pale skin dusted pink and then red, knowing it’s in direct response to you and your words and your presence, whatever that means to her.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she mumbles, and you can’t decide if she sounds bashful or defiant. It’s always a thin line with her.

“I know,” you say again, smiling this time, “I just wanted to.”

“Hm,” is her noncommittal reply, and there’s a furrow to her brow like she wants to be upset. But there’s still a slight blush on her cheeks, and she shoves the lollipop in her mouth anyway, so you think it’s mostly on principle.

There’s a war taking place across her features. Like that soft fragility is struggling to stay as the predatory edge is attempting to carve its way back. In the end she just looks kind of… empty. And tired. So tired.

You want to let her sleep. You want to kiss her forehead and her nose and her lips and put a blanket over her, let her rest. Hold her as she does, if she’ll let you. You don’t think she will, which is why you don’t ask.

Or maybe that’s because you don’t know who’s winning. What part of her is the realest one. Whether she’ll drag you under or let you pull her up for air.

In the end it doesn’t really matter. Hania is on your couch, and when she notices you looking, she smiles around the lollipop. A gentle and ruthless thing, a dare and a promise and an apology. And you don’t know who’s winning. You don’t know if this is a competition between you and her, or if she’s just fighting herself.

But you know that you’ve missed her. You know that you’ve got two full bags of her favorite candy in the kitchen. And you know that, for better or for worse, you’ll keep inviting her into your life, as long as she’ll have you.

That’s enough. That’s always been enough.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on tumblr about fallen hero! i'm juno-60 over there


End file.
